Wednesday, August 8, 2018

Cowboy Bebop 20 Years Later

I've been asked before what made me fall in love with corgis. Did I idolize British royalty? Did I have one or know someone who had one as a child? Did I just think their stumpy legs and enormous ears were adorable? (Well, yeah.)

But the real reason? I started watching Cowboy Bebop in college and fell in love with Ein, the adorable corgi on the show. Yes, I love corgis because I loved this anime.

For anyone who has seen this anime, all I have to do is say I love Cowboy Bebop and they furiously nod in agreement, perhaps singing some of their favorite songs from the show or doing their best Spike Spiegel impression. For anyone who hasn't seen it, it's difficult to describe the show because it defies categorization. But this article does a wonderful job of summing it up:

Cowboy Bebop is its own thing. You could call it a space western. That’s, however, like saying Beyoncé is a good dancer. It’s true. But it’s not the whole picture. Not even close. Cowboy Bebop is a mashup of noir films, spaghetti westerns, urban thrillers, Kurosawa samurai films, classic westerns and sci-fi space adventures.

Again, though, all that genre bending is just part of the equation. The show resonates so deeply because it’s a mirror in which you can see yourself, and how we all wrestle with life. This is what makes Cowboy Bebop great art. It’s a beautifully complex, aesthetically striking meditation on how we deal with love, loss, luck and that inescapable question: Why should I give a fuck?

It's been 20 years since Cowboy Bebop premiered, and those 26 episodes and 1 movie remain relevant and influential today. Time to rewatch the show, I think.